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Rwanda paid sad respect to genocide victims on Sunday, 30 years after a violent campaign planned by Hutu extremists tore the country apart, turning neighbours against one another in one of the worst atrocities of the twentieth century.
The killing spree, which lasted 100 days before the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) rebel force captured Kigali in July 1994, claimed the lives of 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis but also moderate Hutus.
The tiny nation has since found its footing under the iron-fisted administration of President Paul Kagame, who commanded the RPF, but the violence has left a trail of ruin across Africa’s Great Lakes.
On April 7, the anniversary of Hutu militias’ 1994 massacre, Kagame lit a commemoration flame at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, where over 250,000 dead are thought to be buried.
As an army band played sorrowful music, Kagame placed wreaths on the mass graves, flanked by global dignitaries like as many African leaders of state and former US President Bill Clinton, who had described the genocide as his administration’s greatest failure.
The international community’s refusal to interfere has been a source of lasting embarrassment, with French President Emmanuel Macron likely to issue a statement on Sunday claiming that France and its Western and African friends “could have stopped” the killing but lacked the will to do so.
Kagame will also deliver a speech at the capital’s 10,000-seat arena, where Rwandans will later attend a candlelight vigil for those killed in the massacre.
Week of national mourning
Sunday’s events marked the beginning of a week of national mourning, with Rwanda effectively coming to a halt and national flags flying at half-mast.
Music will not be permitted in public places or on the radio, and sporting events and movies will not be broadcast on television unless they are related to “Kwibuka (Remembrance) 30”.
The United Nations and the African Union will also hold commemorative rituals.
Karel Kovanda, a former Czech diplomat who was the first UN ambassador to openly declare the events of 1994 a genocide about a month after they began, said the massacres should never be forgotten.
“The page cannot be turned,” he told AFP in an interview in Kigali, urging measures to prevent “the genocide (from) slipping into oblivion.”
The killing of Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana on April 6, when his jet was shot down over Kigali, set off a rampage by Hutu extremists and the “Interahamwe” militia.
Their victims were shot, beaten, or hacked to death in attacks fueled by brutal anti-Tutsi propaganda broadcast on television and radio. According to UN data, at least 250,000 women have been raped.
Each year, additional mass graves are discovered around the country.
Rwanda established community tribunals in 2002, where victims heard “confessions” from those who had persecuted them, but rights watchdogs claimed the system resulted in miscarriages of justice.
Today, Rwandan ID cards do not indicate whether a person is Hutu or Tutsi.
Secondary school pupils are taught about the genocide as part of a strictly restricted curriculum.
The country has nearly 200 genocide memorials, four of which were added to UNESCO’s World Heritage list last year.
The memorials contain skulls, bone fragments, shredded clothing, and photos of piled-up corpses, as well as rifles, machetes, and other weapons used in the killing.
Fleeing justice
According to Rwanda, hundreds of genocide suspects are still at large, including in neighbouring countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda.
Only 28 people have been extradited to Rwanda from around the world.
France, one of the most popular destinations for Rwandans fleeing punishment at home, has tried and convicted half a dozen persons for their role in the massacres.
The French government had long supported Habyarimana’s administration, resulting in decades of tensions between the two countries.
In 2021, Macron acknowledged France’s role in the genocide and its failure to heed warnings of impending killings, but did not issue an official apology.
